The present disclosure relates generally to a system for messaging content delivery, and more specifically to a system for managing the delivery of short messages using an enhanced communication gateway.
Short message service (SMS), first launched in 1991, also known as text messaging, refers to a protocol for sending and receiving short messages (SMS can also refer to the messages themselves) between mobile devices. SMS is among the many technological contributions included in the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). SMS initially enabled bidirectional transmission of short alphanumeric text messages to and from mobile phones and personal data assistants (PDA). Currently almost every mobile phone or PDA includes SMS as a standard feature and, as a result, messaging via SMS is widely used by the users of such devices. An advantage of SMS is that SMS messages can be quickly composed and sent to a desired recipient.
A typical SMS network includes a short message service center (SMSC), SMS gateways, PSTN gateways, and SIP gateways. The SMSC generally operates in a store-and-forward manner, to guarantee delivery of text messages to a Short Message Entity (SME), e.g., a cellular telephone handset, a phone, or a computer-based communication system. The SMSC typically includes a storage subsystem to store messages that are temporarily incapable of being transmitted to a destination device, e.g., when the destination device is inactive or outside of the service area of the SMS network. The SMSC continues its attempts to forward undelivered messages to an appropriate destination address in intervals, until the designated device has become available, e.g., is turned on or has moved into the service area of the SMS network, and message receipt is confirmed. The SMSC generally interacts with various interfaces to enable the receipt of short messages originating from a multitude of platforms supported by various providers which utilize their proprietary protocols.
The SMS gateways provide the network interface between IP networks, SMS requesters, External SME service entities (ESME) and SS7 signaling networks. The SMS gateways are also capable of communicating with external Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways in order to send/transmit/receive messages to and from SIP enabled devices. SIP is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard signaling protocol for teleconferencing, telephony, presence and event notification and instant messaging. It provides a mechanism for setting up and managing connections, but not for transporting the audio or video data. It is arguably the most widely used protocol for managing Internet telephony. A SIP-based VoIP implementation may send the encoded voice data over the network in a number of ways.
In the event an SMS gateway receives a message from an ESME and desires to transmit this message to a SIP enabled device, it sends the message to a SIP/SMS gateway which in turn performs protocol translation, establishes a SIP session with the end-point (e.g. device or network element) and then sends the message. The challenge with using this approach is that SMSC must interface with external SIP gateways in order to reach SIP-enabled devices. Although this does not seem like a significant problem as long as the protocol translation is properly performed, the carriers are left at the mercy of external SIP gateway providers if the SIP enabled device is out of the control of the carrier or out of the reach of the carrier core network. Another challenge with this approach is potential performance degradation as the message is transmitted from the SMSC to an external gateway for delivery. Yet another challenge with traversing SIP enabled gateways is that this architecture potentially dis-intermediates the carrier from end-point SIP enabled subscribers limiting the monetization aspects of SMS message delivery.